Aravind Srinivas was accepted into the University of California, Berkeley for his PhD, but his mother was disappointed as she had hoped he would go to the Massachusetts Institute of Technology. However, things worked out differently for him as he interned at OpenAI and Google’s DeepMind on the west coast, both of which became leaders in generative artificial intelligence (AI). With this experience, he co-founded Perplexity, a generative-AI startup recently valued at $1bn. Despite his unassuming interview demeanor, Aravind is ambitious and aims to compete with Google search, one of the best business models of all time.
Aravind is a student of disruption and notes the differences in culture between OpenAI and DeepMind. He uses disruption theory to identify Alphabet’s vulnerability as Google’s parent company. However, instead of explaining how Perplexity’s business model will take on the search giant, Aravind turns to “The Innovator’s Dilemma” by Clayton Christensen to make his case. Along with other generative-AI sites like You.com, Aravind sees potential in disrupting Google with innovations like OpenAI’s ChatGPT. However, this argument is seen as off the mark by some.
